Wal Mart Stores in Chongqing Closed Temporarily over Pork Mislabeling

October 1000:002011

New York, October 10 (RainbowNewsLine.com) – Some Wal Mart stores in the Chinese city of Chongqing have been ordered to close down temporarily and to pay a fine of 2.7 million Yuan ($421,000) due to the allegations that regular pork had been mislabeled as “organic.”

The Chongqing police have detained some of Wal-Mart’s employees over the “green pork” incident. Wal-Mart has apologized to its customers for the inconvenience and said that it was cooperating with the authorities.

Wal-Mart said that it was ordered to close down some of its 10 stores and 2 affiliates in the city of Chongqing in western China, although it did not specify how many. State media said that all the 12 stores had been closed temporarily. Wal-Mart has been accused of selling more than 63,500 kilograms of mislabeled pork, an official news agency said, citing the director of the Chongqing Administration of Industry and Commerce, Huang Bo.

As per Bo, the fine is ten times the value of the mislabeled pork. He also said that Wal-Mart has been punished repeatedly for violating food standards and other rules since it started operating in 2006. Wal-Mart said that it “is committed to protecting the rights of consumers and will spare no efforts in this regard.”